Crowner Royal (Crowner John Mysteries) Read online

  ‘Valuable, but hardly fabulous,’ grunted John. ‘It was part of treasure trove collected from the West Country.’

  ‘I understand that you had a private audience with the Justiciar after that meeting in the Exchequer,’ said Renaud de Seigneur. De Wolfe wondered how he knew that – the palace grapevine must have been working overtime.

  ‘It was only to give me a parchment carrying his seal with instructions for all men to give me every assistance in the name of the king,’ replied John. ‘He has commissioned me as Coroner of the Verge to make enquiries as to how this crime was committed and to retrieve the stolen property.’

  Hubert Walter had in fact said a great deal more than this, but John was not going to share such confidences with this nosey crowd.

  ‘It is said that the golden objects vanished from a doubly locked chest, one whose keys were shared between two senior officials,’ persisted Bernard de Montfort. ‘But how could that possibly happen?’

  De Wolfe shrugged. ‘That’s what I’m deputed to discover, God help me!’

  Hawise d’Ayncourt, who was sitting opposite him, stretched her shapely leg to touch his calf, almost as if by accident.

  ‘It seems like a miracle, Sir John,’ she said, her big eyes opening even wider in pretended awe. ‘Do you believe in the supernatural?’

  He grinned crookedly. ‘Not when nine hundred pound’s worth of treasure is missing, my lady! Miracles may still occur in the religious world and if a statue of Our Lady begins to weep tears of milk, then I am prepared to accept a bishop’s assurances that it is genuine. But where solid gold is concerned, I remain a confirmed unbeliever!’

  Her ankle caressed his leg again and he pulled it back sharply, causing a flicker of annoyance to cloud her face. Then Ranulf, who seemed aware of what was going on beneath the table, intervened with a question.

  ‘Do you wish for William Aubrey and myself to assist you in this venture, John? We feel as responsible as you, as we were part of the same escort that brought those damned chests to London.’

  De Wolfe shook his head. ‘The Justiciar instructed me to carry out this task personally, with only my officer and clerk. He wishes for everyone else to remain outside the investigation, to demonstrate that there can be no partiality, as everyone is both potentially innocent or guilty – even the Constable of the Tower, though he seems highly incensed at being included.’

  ‘How will you go about this?’ asked Ranulf.

  ‘I must question everyone involved in the custody of the treasure in the Tower – from the Constable down to each of the guards. Even the Exchequer men like Simon Basset and Treasury clerks cannot be exempt. Anyone who seems to be suspect will be subject to arduous interrogation – even put to the torture if that seems necessary.’

  His listeners heard his words in silence, impressed by the sternness of his manner. John de Wolfe was well known for his unswerving devotion to the king and it sounded as if he meant to pursue this quest with ruthless determination.

  When he escaped from the inquisitive residents, John waited outside for Ranulf and William and they walked in the cooling evening across the yard at the rear of the palace towards the Marshalsea stables and accommodation where the two men lived.

  ‘Those people from France seem to have more knowledge of this place than ourselves,’ complained Ranulf. ‘If this rumour about spies is true, then surely they must be the obvious candidates, always wanting to know every detail of what’s going on!’

  The younger marshal, William Aubrey, leaned in from the other side of Ranulf to join the debate.

  ‘Even that priest from the Auvergne seems more concerned with palace politics and scandal than he is with the curing of souls,’ he observed. ‘These days, you never know who to trust.’

  De Wolfe shrugged off their concerns. ‘I think they are just bored and ready to feast on any bit of tittle-tattle they can find. The sooner the old queen comes, the better – then we can get this circus on the road and stop staring at our own navels!’

  He said much the same thing to Gwyn and Thomas a little later, when they were sitting in the main room of the house in Long Ditch Lane. His main purpose was to discuss how they were to carry out this unwelcome commission that the Justiciar had thrust upon him.

  ‘We have only a week or so before the court moves off, if Queen Eleanor arrives when they forecast,’ he said. ‘Hubert Walter will not be pleased if nothing is achieved before then.’

  ‘We can’t be blamed for that,’ complained Gwyn indignantly. ‘The bloody theft was nothing to do with us. We’ve already been cleared of any involvement, thank God.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ said John grimly. ‘In spite of Hubert Walter extolling our good behaviour, if nothing is found before the king gets to hear of it, no one will escape his wrath – not even us.’

  ‘But we’ve got a cast-iron defence against any accusations,’ protested Gwyn.

  ‘That’s as may be, but I’ve been saddled with solving the crime, so what are we going to do about it?’ grunted John, reaching for his pot of Aedwulf’s ale.

  ‘I suppose we had better visit the scene of the crime,’ offered Thomas, hesitantly. ‘I presume the two chests are still there.’

  ‘The pox-ridden guards may be at the bottom of this,’ growled Gwyn. ‘Surely no one could get into that chamber without a sentry seeing them? It was at the end of a passage and behind a couple of locked doors, with a sentinel outside the outer one.’

  Thomas voiced what John was thinking. ‘Then the thief can only be someone who had a right to be in that strongroom. I wonder how big the stolen objects were? Could they be concealed under a cloak or tunic and smuggled out?’

  De Wolfe scratched his black stubble, which was due for his weekly shave.

  ‘The plate was the largest thing. I remember it when the inventory was made in Winchester. Placed flat against a belly or chest, it could be taken out. The other treasures were small enough to be slipped into a deep pocket.’

  ‘And they were all of gold – the less valuable silver was left behind,’ added Thomas.

  The three of them thought about this scenario for a moment.

  ‘So who would have had legitimate reason to be in the chamber?’ asked Gwyn.

  ‘The Constable, Herbert de Mandeville, for one,’ replied John. ‘Then Simon Basset, of course, and those knights from the Tower garrison, and a couple of the guards and their sergeant.’

  The sharp wits of Thomas pointed out that both the knights and the Tower guards might well be different each time the chamber was visited, as chests were presumably arriving and departing frequently, requiring inventories to be made.

  ‘We mention Simon Basset, but there are a legion of Treasury and Exchequer barons, clerks and officials who might have reason to enter the room,’ added Thomas.

  John groaned. ‘I’ll have to talk to them all, I suppose!’ he muttered. ‘Though no one is going to confess, if it means hanging or disembowelling.’

  ‘What about this key business?’ asked Gwyn. ‘It could only be someone who has managed to get hold of the correct two keys to the pair of locks on that chest.’

  De Wolfe felt a shiver run up his spine. ‘Keys which I had in my possession for only four days,’ he reminded them. ‘Thank Christ the Justiciar has enough faith in me to dismiss any thought of my guilt.’

  ‘But even if you had the keys now, you had no way of getting into that chamber after the boxes were put there – and we know the contents were intact when we left,’ pointed out Thomas consolingly.

  The coroner swallowed the last of his ale with an almost savage gesture and slammed the empty pot on the table.

  ‘I wish to hell I’d never had to leave Devon,’ he snarled. ‘We had problems enough there, God knows, but nothing like the things these slippery, scheming courtiers seem able to dream up. Sod it, I’m going to bed and hope that tomorrow will put an end to this sorry business!’

  Next morning, after Thomas had finished his duties in the abbey, the
y rode up to the Great Tower, pushing their way through the crowded streets to the extreme eastern end of the great walled city that housed the tens of thousands of inhabitants now overflowing through the six gates into suburbs spreading into the surrounding countryside.

  The brooding grey2 walls, a reminder of the Conqueror’s power, glowered over them as they approached. John produced his new authority from the Justiciar and dangled the imposing red seal in front of the gate guards. Though none could read it, they unhesitatingly let the coroner inside, where the builders were energetically carrying out King Richard’s order to erect new defences.

  At the stables, they left their horses and an ostler took them to the steps up to the main entrance, where again a pair of sentries were impressed by John’s royal warrant. They called a page and he took them up four gloomy flights of stairs built into the thickness of the massive walls. On the second floor, the Constable, who preferred to be known as ‘The Keeper’, had a chamber with a deeply embrasured window that looked out over the river towards Southwark and the bridge.

  Herbert de Mandeville did not look pleased to see de Wolfe, as he rose from behind his table.

  ‘I thought you would be bothering me, sooner or later,’ he muttered, wiping sweat from his brow with a crumpled kerchief. It was already very hot in the room, even at the ninth hour of the morning. A tonsured clerk came in from an adjacent office dragging a folding leather chair to the front of the table. At Herbert’s grudging invitation John sat down, leaving his officer and clerk to lurk behind him.

  ‘I know this is not a welcome exercise, but it has be done,’ began de Wolfe. ‘You saw yesterday that I and those who went to Winchester were paraded in front of you like suspects, so it affects us all.’

  The Constable unbent a little at John’s tactful overture.

  ‘It’s a total mystery to me,’ he snapped. ‘If you can solve it, de Wolfe, then you deserve to be Chief Justiciar yourself, for I’m damned if I can fathom how it was done.’

  They then went through the details of how the strongroom below the Tower was protected. De Man-deville eventually pulled out a silver chain from inside the pouch on his belt.’

  ‘This is attached to a ring sewn inside my scrip,’ he declared. ‘And on the other, there is this key, which never leaves my person, except when I am in bed.’

  He held up a small iron key, then rose again and went to a large cupboard fixed to one of the stone walls. It was at least five feet square, but shallow, the edges of the doors being rimmed with iron.

  ‘This is my key store, where keys to most doors in the Tower are kept,’ he announced, as he opened a padlock which secured a thick hasp, fixed to the doors by metal bolts.

  When the doors were opened, John saw dozens of keys of all shapes and sizes, hanging from hooks at the back of the cupboard. Many had dabs of coloured paint on their shanks or rings, some had wooden labels attached by cords and others were identified by slips of parchment tied to them. Some of the keys were almost a foot long, but most were half that size, with complicated wards cut into the metal.

  ‘And no one else had a key to that cupboard?’ asked John. ‘What happens when you are away or indisposed?’

  ‘My chief clerk has a copy,’ admitted de Mandeville, rather sheepishly. ‘But I would trust him with my life. He has been here for twenty-four years. And, anyway, in respect of the Exchequer boxes, it is immaterial, as they cannot be opened with my key alone.’

  John thought this system had a glaring defect as far as the keys of the Tower were concerned, but had to admit that without the other key held by the Exchequer officials, the chests seemed impregnable. After more fruitless questioning of de Mandeville, he asked to speak to the chief clerk, a white-haired old man with severe disease of his joints. His knuckles were crippled with hard swellings and he shuffled along due to painful stiffness of his hips. However, there was nothing wrong with his brain or his tongue, and he vehemently defended his trustworthiness, claiming that the key to his master’s cupboard never left his person, even in bed. He had never opened the store to anyone without firm authorisation and the keys to the Treasury boxes had never been removed by anyone other than the ‘Keeper’ himself.

  De Wolfe abandoned his interrogation and asked to be shown the scene of the crime, the chamber deep in the bowels of the Tower. De Mandeville marched ahead of them, back down the stairs and then through tortuous passages to a narrow spiral staircase that had a small portcullis and a heavy door at its bottom end.

  ‘This is a weak spot in the defence of the Tower, should it ever be besieged,’ he grunted, as he unlocked the door with a large key he brought from his chamber. ‘Normally, an undercroft is quite isolated from the floors above, but maybe this could be defended by two men against an army, as it’s so narrow.’

  At the bottom, a man-at-arms stood on duty in the passage that led to the treasure chamber, and another man with pike and sword guarded the door through which the chests had been taken.

  ‘I reckon it must have been a bloody miracle after all,’ muttered Gwyn, as they waited for the Constable to unlock the door to the chamber. ‘There’s all these sentries and every damned door is locked. A flaming mouse couldn’t have got in there!’

  When the heavy door creaked open, the dim light from the guttering flames of small oil lamps set in niches in the passage walls seeped into the chamber. The soldier took two of these lights and held them high so that the Constable and his guests could see the contents of the room. There were now about a dozen boxes ranged against the walls, some on top of each other.

  ‘That’s the one, cursed by Satan, I reckon!’ snarled de Mandeville, for his reputation, liberty and possibly his very life had been put at risk by the trouble the chest had caused.

  The object of his dislike had been set slightly apart from the others since the loss had been discovered and John recognised it by the different spacing of the iron bands that encircled it. The two padlocks were firmly in place and the box looked innocent enough, in spite of the Constable’s claim that it was cursed.

  De Mandeville now brandished another key, which he had brought from his chamber. ‘Here’s mine, try it if you like – but you’ll still not open the damned chest without someone from the Exchequer being present with his key.’

  More out of curiosity than necessity, John took the key and inserted it into the padlock, which was as large as his hand. The mechanism operated surprisingly smoothly and the hoop of the lock hinged back easily. John withdrew it from the heavy hasp, but as expected the lid would not lift a hair’s-breadth without the other lock being removed. He replaced the first one and stood up, handing the key back to the Constable.

  ‘It’s all just as you claimed, Sir Herbert,’ he said sombrely. ‘There’s no way in which this chest could have been opened except by the use of the two keys at the same time.’

  ‘Maybe there’s a hidden trapdoor in the bottom,’ rumbled Gwyn, meaning to be facetious, but raising a scowl of derision from de Mandeville. However, de Wolfe was determined to leave no possibility unexplored.

  ‘Is there anything in the chest now?’ he demanded. The Constable assured him that the remaining contents had been locked in another chest, as the security of this one was now in doubt.

  ‘Right, let’s turn it over,’ he snapped, and with the Constable looking on in surprise he and Gwyn strained to turn the large box first on to its back, then right over on to its top. John carefully examined the whole surface, running his hand over it to look for cracks and tapped it for soundness. He did the same to the sides and ends, then turned it back on to its base and checked the lid. Satisfied, he stood up and smacked dirt from his fingers.

  ‘Nothing! It had to be opened by the keys. And someone must have had both keys, unless it was a conspiracy between at least two thieves,’ he announced.

  De Mandeville glared at him. ‘I trust you are not suggesting that I was involved, de Wolfe?’ he snarled.

  John shook his head. ‘I am suggesting nothing. I am j
ust stating the inevitable conclusion that this chest was opened by unlocking it.’

  There was nothing more to be gained in the chamber and they retreated, the Constable securing the door and stalking ahead of them. John refused his rather stilted offer of refreshment and they were seen out of the Tower, where they collected their mounts and made their way back into the city. They went past heaving crowds around the markets at Poultry, into Cheapside and on via the great church of St Paul to Ludgate. Here, with some relief, they left the city walls behind and rode more easily along the less congested Strand to Charing and then to Westminster. Thomas hurried off to his beloved abbey and Gwyn vanished to an alehouse, leaving John to enjoy his dinner alone. The afternoon was enlivened by the coroner being called to a knife-fight between two cooks in the palace kitchens, but as neither was badly injured, John decided not to make an official case of assault, but consigned both men to the custody of the Master at Arms, instructing him to lock them up for a week.

  Next day, Thomas forsook the abbey refectory and ate with de Wolfe and Gwyn in Long Ditch. Over fat bacon with onions and carrots, followed by a blancmange of almond milk and shredded chicken, flavoured with spices, Thomas enquired what the next move was in his master’s investigation.

  ‘We’ve talked to one key-holder, so the obvious thing is to speak to the other,’ replied the coroner, digging bacon strands from between his teeth. ‘I understand that Simon Basset lives in one of those houses in King Street, but first we’ll see if he’s in the Treasury this afternoon.’

  When they had finished their dinner with maslin bread and a hunk of hard yellow cheese, washed down with cider, they walked back to the palace. The day was still hot and sultry with a distant rumble of thunder coming from the Kentish Weald. At the entrance to the Receipt of Exchequer building, the sentry saluted John with a fist across his chest, the other hand holding the shaft of a long pike. Inside it was cooler under the high ceiling, below which a dozen clerks worked at desks and tables, penning lists of accounts on a multitude of parchments.